Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

Someone has disturbed the records in your office.

This is perhaps the most confusing bit of mischief that has ever occurred at the Black Order. Certainly, it is the largest bit of mischief without an immediately obvious culprit in a while. Central Agency's constant presence, a constant thorn in your side, has cut down on a lot of the good humor around the Order.

Most of the mischief these days is at the hands of Timothy Hearst; the boy's chances of growing up into an upstanding young gentleman are practically nil. Even Klaud's firm hand won't be ever able to completely curb the boy's wilder impulses, you think.

But the open drawer in the Exorcist records isn't Timothy's work. It's hard enough to get him to read his schoolwork; he's not going to go digging in the records.

Certainly, not the ones that are the last evidence of the existence of Exorcists who were gone before you even joined the Order. Some of those records - sealed and only brought from the old headquarters for completeness' sake - are from before you were even born.

And yet - you came in to work in the middle of the night, when you thought you might be able to free of Lvellie hovering over your shoulder, and the drawer is sitting open in the dark.

There were fewer Exorcists back in those days, and the records are thinner - there was less Akuma activity back then, too. Fewer missions, fewer casualties.

There's rustling from the drawer. You freeze, just shy of setting your coffee cup on your desk.

You're not armed, and those records are precious. (They're the last evidence of people's lives.)

If this is some spy of the Earl's, you're fucked anyway. But you still pick up the letter opener from your desk, as quietly as you can. You won't go quietly, or without a fight.

(Already on your lips are the words, I'm sorry, Lenalee.)

The rustling stops. Starts again. And then in a burst of motion, something flies, straight upwards, out of the file drawer.

At first, you think it's a golem. True, most of the golems in the Order are black, but there is something Timcampy-like about the shape and the motion that draws your eye.

But then the shape spreads its wings properly, hovering in space over the drawer, and you realize - this is no golem. No golem would be that near-glowing white, reflecting all the dim light coming in your window, and no golem has that body shape, a headless human torso with wings where the arms ought to be.

Innocence.

Innocence acting of its own accord? You've never heard of such a thing. But then, no two incidents surrounding Innocence are alike.

Still wary, you set down your coffee cup and the letter opener. Turning to face the Innocence, you give a small bow.

"My apologies for interrupting you."

(What use would Innocence have for the records of past Exorcists?)

The hovering Innocence seems - startled. Caught, like a child with their hands in the sweets. The long dangling tail - more serpentine than anything - swings to slam the drawer shut, and then the Innocence shoots off into the upper part of the room, disappearing somewhere in the rafters. Something that white shouldn't disappear into the darkness so easily, you think.

After the room has been silent for a few minutes, you approach the drawer. The lock has been picked, though not broken - if you weren't expecting it to be locked, if you hadn't just seen it open, you wouldn't have suspected that anything was wrong. The file cabinet slides open easily at your touch.

The records left by your predecessors are neatly organized, at least. They're sorted by the date when an Exorcist joined the Order, rather than by name.

You see, immediately, one file, about a quarter of the way in, that is far thicker than the others. Cross Marian is a resident of this drawer, its undisputed champion, and the reason these records were in a place you could access them in the first place. The last Exorcist of his era left alive.

Or he was.

Judging by the spacing of the files, it was Cross that your little visitor was so interested in. You go to slide the file closed, but pause when you notice a photo about to fall out of the folder and get lost somewhere in the bottom of the drawer.

In it, a much younger Cross Marian, in a new Exorcist's uniform of the plain black and silver that was the style of the time, stands beside a young woman, coming only up to the man's chin. It looks to be some manner of official portrait - perhaps even the one taken of him when he was registered as an Exorcist.

It's the woman - the girl, really, blonde, a few years younger than Cross, smiling in the aged photo - who gives you pause. You've never given much thought to her before. You never had any reason to - she was just one of numerous other Exorcists who fell in the line of duty, before you even knew that the Order existed.

But you recognize her face now. Allen Walker's soul-seeing eye revealed it to everyone, that day in the not so distant past when everything went wrong.

You didn't realize that Alma Karma's previous incarnation had been peers with Cross. The woman in the picture is younger than the tormented soul you saw trying desparately to hide her face, but unmistakably the same. She looks about the age Kanda is now, with Cross in his early twenties behind her.

You flip the picture over. In faded ink is a caption - Cross Marian, 22. Cassandra Hanes, 19. Inducted into the ranks of the Exorcists, this day November 23, 18XX.

Not just peers - they became Exorcists on the same day. Indeed, when you pull Cross' folder forward, the much slimmer (though far from narrow) Cassandra Hanes is directly behind it.

You leaf the folder open, just to see the cover page with her vital statistics, and are greeted by a page that is almost entirely redacted black. The Second Exorcist project covered its tracks, it seems. Only her name, birthdate, and picture remain. The woman in that photo is a few years older, more battle-hardened, and somehow far sadder than the girl who stands next to Cross.

You slide the picture into Cassandra's folder, and close the drawer. As many questions as this information leaves you with, none of them will ever be given answers. The dead have no way of speaking to you, after all.

Instead, you leave your still full coffee mug on your desk, and decide that you've had your fill of paperwork for the night. Time for bed, Komui Lee. Central's demands, like its Crow agents, will still be there in the morning.

----

Letter, found by General Froi Tiedoll on his dresser, three days before Kanda Yu returned to the Black Order.

Froi,

It has been a very long time, and I can only hope you still remember me. Despite everything, I still remember you. How could I forget, the first time we met, you barely up to my shoulders, and how your breath was taken away, when you for the first time put on the glasses the Order had made for you?

I put my coat around your shoulders. You told me the world was beautiful. I told you to keep seeing it that way, because otherwise it would destroy you.

You're still here. You've grown up wonderfully, and I am in your debt, for taking care of someone precious to me. But it seems that I have to ask you for one final favor. You're the only one left from those days; the only person I can ask.

Do you still think that this world is beautiful? Leave your answer in the vent over your bed.

Yours,
your old friend Andie

PS. Destroy this. Don't burn it, that will draw too much attention. Eat it when no one's looking. Do NOT let anyone from Central know that it ever existed.

A one-line note, left in the vent as specified:

The world is as lovely as it ever was. Whatever you need, old friend, is yours for the asking.

There is no signature save the blot of a fallen tear. The next morning, there is no evidence of the notes except the aftertaste of ink in an old man's throat.

----

There's a rip in your skirt.

Not the skirt of your uniform, which is impeccable as always - but the one you just wear around the Order when you have downtime, rarer and rarer as it is these days. It's one Johnny made for you. He's fixed it up probably half a dozen times, after various mishaps with coffee and other things in the Science Department. He gave it to you when you were thirteen, after you came back from the first mission you had on your own, the first mission that the Order allowed you to go on without a minder, knowing that your brother was enough of a siren call that you would come back. He sized it up for you, last year, when it became obvious that there was no way it was going to fit anymore.

It's such a little thing. But it reminds you that Johnny isn't going to be here anymore, and that reminds you of Allen, and Kanda, and all of the people you've lost. It reminds you of Suman saying that he didn't get attached to Finders because you never knew how long they were going to live; it reminds you Anita's hair in your hands as you put her mother's hairpiece in, and the things she knew that you hadn't realized yet. It reminds you of the altar to the fallen that you're not allowed to keep, because to mourn for any individual is forbidden, because what if the Earl were to hear?

(If the Earl is coming to the Order in order to find victims to make into Akuma, then you all have far larger problems. But that has never made a difference to Central Agency and its policy of bare minimum tolerance for a single mass funeral a month, even as the bodies pile high and the empty coffins higher.)

It shouldn't be the breaking point. You've endured much worse than this. But somehow, opening up your clothes, on the first day free of missions that you've had since Allen disappeared, and finding that your favorite skirt has a burst seam almost the entire length of one hip is the straw that has shattered your camel's back.

You sink to your knees in front of your dresser, silent tears streaming down your face, and think, We can't go on like this.

Every time you think you're resolved to it, something else happens, some other terrible thing reminds you that to the rest of the world, you're nothing more than a human sacrifice to keep the Earl at bay just a little longer. That as far as the Central Agency is concerned - and what Central believes, the rest of the Order has no choice but to go along with - the Exorcists aren't what's going to win the war. There's no way for you to win the war. So what really matters to them is finding the solution that will work while you get worn down holding the line, until you die or you break.

Your knuckles are scraped, and your knees are bruised. You sit on your floor and try to control your tears.

(It's one thing to accept the Innocence. That, you cannot go back on. The weight of red anklets is sometimes freeing and sometimes like shackles, but you chose it, and it is yours in either case.)

(But Central and the Innocence have less and less to do with each other each day.)

"Hey, are you okay?"

Your head jerks up, your tears forgotten.

The voice is unfamiliar. It sounds like a boy's, your age or perhaps a little older - no older than Kanda, certainly. It sounds like it's coming from both your left and right at the same time, just a little above your head, and there is no one else in the room.

You jerk to your feet. Your Innocence activates on reflex - always so much quicker than when it was an equipment type - forming crystalline red armor around your legs. You're still holding the skirt in one hand.

The voice says, "Oh, no, I'm sorry for startling you! I'm sorry, I just noticed you crying, and..."

There's a small sound like a bird fluttering its wings. That sound has a real direction, something concrete that you can look at, over your head and by the door.

Perched on the doorframe is what you think at first is a bird, no larger than the palm of your hand - but then you process the shape of it, the wings set too wide, the human neck that ends abruptly where a head should be, the too-white white that glows in a subtle way that means it doesn't cast a shadow. Innocence.

Innocence which is giving you an apologetic, Chinese-style bow, no less, the kind you've seen a few times from transfers from the Asian Branch but otherwise haven't encountered since childhood.

It says a lot about the last year that your first reaction is, Ah, well, what's one more unbelievable thing?

"You're... Innocence?" you say, quietly, because if anyone noticed you activating, there's sure to be a Crow agent outside your door shortly.

The Innocence shifts out of its bow, folding wings across its 'chest' the way a person would if they were pouting. "Sort of," the voice in your ears says. "It's maybe more like I'm a ghost possessing Innocence."

You think back to the Innocence Allen and Kanda recovered not too long ago - not Timothy but the mission before, with the chess-playing ring. That had been a ghost possessing Innocence, too; an Accommodator, perhaps, who went undiscovered in life.

Of course, that ghost had been an elderly man, not a young one. Even if just based on intuition, you don't think this is the same Innocence. But you nod, resisting the urge to bite your lip, and say, "That makes sense. Um, then - I mean if I can ask - when did you...?"

Die, is the word your lips refuse to make.

(Death is a taboo subject in Order, beyond dry reports and mass funerals. Death is the domain of the Earl.)

"A while ago but not a long time ago, I think," the voice says. "It's kind of messy. But I woke up a couple weeks ago, maybe."

"You just woke up?" you ask, keeping your voice quiet in case there's anyone passing by in the hallway. Something about the story, the timing, doesn't add up.

"I had to talk Hevlaska into letting me go, and that took a while," the Innocence continues. "She didn't think it was a good idea for some reason."

So this Innocence was definitely already in the Order's keeping, then. You - would like the chance to talk to Hevlaska, actually, but she's almost always under guard by Central, these days, and hardly anyone has access to her unless there's something actually wrong with their Innocence. They didn't even send Kanda to her after his transformation into a crystal-type.

You want to be suspicious. But in spite of your suspicion - he was checking to see if you were okay. Someone can't be all bad, you have to think, if the first thing they do when they see someone crying is try to help.

"I see," you say. You look up, then back down to your dresser. "Will you come down here, please?"

There's a flutter of wings, as the Innocence takes off, gliding over to settle on your dresser. You manage a weak smile, even as you forcefully tell yourself, This is a person, even if it doesn't look like it.

(It's not the first time you've done that. Chomesuke was a person, even if he was also an Akuma. Chomesuke saved your life, pulling you up from the bottom of the ocean.)

(Another friend lost, and you feel more like a failure for that one than the rest, because none of you thought about what happens when an Akuma self-destructs until it was too late. Even if you could never have saved Chomesuke, you could have at least saved the soul underneath.)

(That's why you've never spoken of the modified Akuma to Allen. You know he wouldn't have approved.)

"Thank you," you say, bowing your head in turn. "For taking the time to be kind."

There isn't enough kindness left in the Order. Maybe there's not enough kindness left in the whole world.

"What else was I supposed to do?" the boy's voice asks, ringing louder in your head with your Innocence activated. "The only thing we have is each other."

Weakly, you find yourself smiling. Before you can answer, there's a knock on your door. An unfamiliar voice - "Exorcist?"

"It's nothing," you call, glancing towards the door - and when you look back, the Innocence has disappeared, leaving only the sound of fluttering wings in its wake.

You stare at the empty spot on your dresser for a moment, and then whisper, "Good luck," before you set the skirt aside and open the door.

----

Someone's been through your office again.

It's the most recent drawer, this time. The one that starts with Lavi and Bookman, proceeds through Allen, Miranda, Krory, and Chaoji to now finally land on Timothy. There's space for a dozen more Exorcists in that drawer. You don't know if it will ever be filled.

Allen's file is the one that's open. You might have guessed, after the first time. From master to student, only a logical progression.

It looks like Miranda and Krory's files have been rifled through as well, when you take a closer look. You set your coffee on top of the file cabinet.

"You left it open this time. Less worried about covering your tracks?"

There's a soft flutter of wings through the darkness. When you turn around, the Innocence is sitting in a moonbeam slanted across your desk, wings not entirely closed around itself.

The tip of its long, dangling tail is black. You're fairly sure it wasn't like that last time. You squint at it, then at the single, suspicious ink stain on your desk. You thought you'd smeared something and just forgotten. It wouldn't have been the first time.

"You could have at least asked permission, you know," you say, reaching out to take a sip of your coffee. Yeah, just address the Innocence the way you would anyone else you caught in your office, Komui. No way this can go wrong.

But you've committed to the course of action now, and - Well. Your words get what you would call a huff, if Innocence breathed. The motion of the shoulders the wings are attached to is all too human.

The Innocence flicks a piece of paper from one of your piles onto the main part of the desk. It's reaching for the ink bottle when you realize the problem.

"Ah, you can't speak."

If there was a face on the end of that neck, you think you would be the recipient of a no shit look to rival Reever's or even Kanda's. It warms something in you more than the coffee does, even with the steam coming in your nose. This you know how to deal with, and that gives you space to deal with this one thing at a time.

"Well," you say. "Don't use my reports, at least not the ones people care about. Just a moment..." You step around to your chair, dig around in a pile for a moment. "Here, no one will care about these. I can destroy them after. I assume you don't want to be discovered, since you've gone to such lengths to sneak in here at night."

You set the paper next to the Innocence, and even uncap the inkwell. You never thought that your habit of keeping old fashioned pens would be worth something someday. And to think Reever keeps telling you to switch to ballpoints.

(Not that you can say to him, An Innocence needed my old fashioned ink to write, so your argument is invalid! Alas.)

A tiny dip, a quick scratch. Thanks.

"Not a problem," you say. "Facilitating things for the Exorcists is the bulk of my job... not that I get to do much, these days." And not that, technically speaking, you're talking to an Exorcist, but... You suppose close enough is good enough. You take a sip of your coffee.

(You might be talking to an Exorcist. Timothy's Innocence has a separate consciousness, but it was inert until it synchronized with the boy. Hevlaska is probably a closer match for this case.)

"May I ask a question?" you say, setting your mug down at your elbow.

Rather than writing a reply, the Innocence shrugs its wings at you.

You take that as invitation enough, and ask, "Why Cross?"

Immediate, furious scribbling. A fleck of ink hits the side of your coffee mug.

Do you really think the master of the Grave of Maria would die when he could disappear instead?

And that... Well, isn't that the question. You say, carefully, "The Grave of Maria's powers are not well-recorded."

Don't fuck with me. It's a perception-altering Innocence. The tip of the tail jabs itself at the paper to make the point.

You're beginning to form a hypothesis.

What you say is, "And would he have been capable of manipulating it in that state? Even if his body disappeared, a point-blank shot from Judgement isn't something anyone survives."

If anyone could do it, it'd be him. A pause, another dip in the ink. Even if he was dying, he'd hide his body from the Order. But since you didn't find Maria, he's alive.

You can guess why the Order's famed alchemist - practically a necromancer himself - would want to avoid letting anyone else getting their hands on his body.

Especially if that person knew one of the subjects of the Second Exorcist Project.

(Did he know what became of her? Did he perhaps even help? The Grave of Maria certainly bears resemblance to the process that was used on Kanda and Alma...)

You cup your chin in your hand, leaning forward to rest your elbow on your desk. "Is that your professional opinion, Cassandra?"

The Innocence freezes. It's hard to describe how you know that, considering that it doesn't breathe, but if it did, you're sure that it would be holding its breath.

You smile. Caught you.

"Or would you prefer it if I called you - "

The sentence isn't even fully out of your mouth before DON'T is inked across the page. You close your mouth.

Cassandra, or perhaps Alma, finishes across the page, There's too many people who might still recognize that name.

"Fair enough, I suppose," you say. "Then - "

But you don't get a chance to ask your question, because the Innocence takes a great leap into the air - the spread, beating wings sending a few papers flying off your desk. Once again, the white shape disappears into your rafters faster and more thoroughly than it has any right to.

You stay, staring at the half a conversation in drying ink on your desk. Eventually, you take another drink of coffee.

Well. Alma Karma, of all people, has every reason to distrust a member of the Order. No matter that you had nothing to do with his suffering.

And yet, you get the feeling this isn't the last you'll see of him. You take the page and fold it up, ink still wet. The smears will hide the incriminating evidence until you can destroy it properly.

Just like a stray cat, you suppose you'll have to get him used to socializing properly.

"Same time tomorrow, then?"

There is no answer.

----

Kanda was one of the last people you thought you would ever see as a comrade. Abrasive and solitary, it was easy to dislike him -

(Abrasive and solitary, like you were, when you were so afraid of what you were, of the people who came to reach out their hands, of leaving the dark castle where you had spent the whole of your life, alone the last decade of it after your grandfather passed.)

- it was easy to see exactly the face that Kanda wanted you and everyone else to see.

Now, you know better.

(Kanda was the first to stay behind on the Ark, to let the others keep going and try to escape. Kanda was the person who carried you out of the Ark, even when his strength should have long since failed him.)

By the time you woke back up in Headquarters, knowing in the pit of your gut that your days of dreaming of Eliade were over for good, Kanda had become one of the comrades you trusted the most.

So there was no one more surprised than you, except perhaps Miranda, to hear that he had walked away from the Order entirely. That he just... left.

(Lavi missing, Kanda leaving, and Allen labelled a criminal and forced to flee. Three of your dearest comrades, lost to you in the space of a day.)

But you understood, better than anyone - not that you would have said anything to anyone about it. If you had the chance to say goodbye to Eliade properly, to see her even if it was to see her disappear, you would have walked that path without looking back, too.

And so, no one is less surprised than you to see him return.

(Then become an Exorcist, who killed an Akuma named Eliade. Let that become your reason for living.)

The evening of Kanda's return, you hear a voice in an abandoned room -

"Shit! Why did he come back so soon? I'm not ready yet..."

The voice is unfamiliar. You narrow your eyes, and, silently as you can be, cross to the door in question and jerk it open. You're ready to question this stranger on just what their intentions towards your comrade (he never would permit the word friend) are -

But the room is empty, save for a faint sound of the wind fluttering through the curtains of the open window. Even when, to be thorough, you lean out the window and look down, up, and to both sides, there's no sign that anyone was there.

It makes your teeth itch.

(Even though you didn't see anyone, you feel more than you hear that same voice, when you've left, sighing in relief.)

----

A second letter, in the same place as the first, the day after Kanda's return -

Froi -

I knew that I could count on you.

I wish I could speak to you face to face, but it's too complicated a situation at the moment. I'm not the same person that you remember, and I don't want to cause you or anyone else I care about any more heartache. If Central knew that I was still around, I'd be the top of their shitlist.

Is Komui Lee trustworthy? I can't make heads or tails of him.

Yours,
A

You frown at the letter, taking just a moment to push your glasses up your nose. It's unlike the Cassandra you knew to use such a crude word as shitlist.

Then you fold the paper into quarters and dip the corner into the mug of familiar-tasting ale you brought up with you from the kitchens to nurse after dinner. Softening the paper makes it far easier to swallow, literally and figuratively.

It'd be stranger if she was the same person. After all, it's been close to thirty years. You were barely an Exorcist when she died, a thin reed of a teenage boy with glasses too big for his face who was still learning to control his Innocence. It had been a shock, when the woman who had been like a big sister to you for a brief year suddenly died.

It was your first loss. It was the loss that taught you that all you could do was cry and keep going.

It was the only time you can ever remembering Cross Marian grieve like a human for anyone. You remember hearing people talk of how the normally aloof Cross had wept for Maria, before he animated her body into a puppet, her request that she be made into something that could continue to protect the people she had loved. But Maria was before your time.

Cross didn't cry over Cassandra. He just stood beside her coffin, for too many hours, playing with a cigarette between his fingers without lighting it. She hated the smell of smoke.

You'd forgotten that, before now. You didn't have any reason to remember.

Paper and beer are a horrible flavor combination. You get most of the way through the note and have to stop to gulp half of your drink, clearing your throat. But it's true that Central watches Exorcists - watches you, especially, as a General - more closely than they ever have before. If Andie thinks that burning her note would attract undue attention, you'll trust her that far.

The fiber's probably good for you, at your age, anyway.

When your drink is almost gone, you take one of your numerous sketchbooks from the shelves of your room, carefully pull out a fragment of paper, and on the back of the doodle of a severe-looking, twelve-year-old Yu, write -

Komui is as trustworthy as any man could be. He came to the Order because his sister was taken as an Exorcist, and he was determined to stay by her side.

You leave it in the same vent as before. There's little doubt in your mind that it will reach its recipient. And as much as you would like to see her after all these years, you won't push her before she's ready.

Until then, you have a wayward apprentice who needs your help.

----

With that confirmation, you return to your office the next evening, and take that mostly-redacted file from its place. You cover your interest in Cassandra Hanes by removing Cross' file as well, even though you know most of it by heart already, at least the more recent parts. You never had much cause to be interested in how exactly Cross Marian came to be an Exorcist before now.

The first few pages after their biological records tell two halves of the same story. A Finder discovered a fragment of Innocence in a town in the north of Ireland, which was animating a statue of an angel at night. It was believed that the statue was moving in response to the will of a girl who lived near the town's church - Cassandra.

Her parents wanted her married and kept close to the family, but she wanted to leave and travel the world. It was a common enough story, except that Cassandra had actually been locked in the cellar of one of her neighbors. That was when the Innocence in the statue responded to her will, her desire to escape. Every night, it used its spear to smash into the cellar of a different house, trying to free her.

Unfortunately, because Cassandra didn't know whose cellar served as her prison, neither did the statue, and so its reign of destruction had attracted the attention of both the Order and the Earl.

At the time, however, the villagers weren't willing to admit to the existence of the hidden young woman and her potential connection to the statue's apparent rampage; they just begged the Finder assigned to the case to take the statue away. Unfortunately - or perhaps fortunately for Cassandra - the statue itself was too large to move unless it was under its own power. Thus, a proper Exorcist and a team from the Science Division, far less advanced than it is now, were called in, to protect the Innocence until it could be safely removed from the statue and do the removing, respectively.

On that team was Cross Marian, a rising star in the Order. It gives you some nostalgia to skim past Cross' pre-Exorcist records, because it reminds you of your own determined rise through the ranks, though Cross is more of a magician and you are more of a technologist.

The night after their arrival, the Order team was attacked by a group of Akuma, which was only to be expected. The attacking group contained a Level 2 Akuma, one of the first on record capable of enough forethought to successfully order lesser Akuma in a strategic assault.

The Exorcist, an equipment type, fell to an Akuma's poisoned bullet. With no recourse but desperation, Cross Marian picked up the fallen man's revolver, against the warnings of the leader of his team and the Finder, and fired upon the Akuma.

For whatever reason, the Innocence accepted him. And so Cross Marian became an Exorcist.

It was enough to drive the Level 2 to retreat, its unit of Level 1s decimated between the initial round of losses and Cross taking up the fight. Dawn came, once, twice, three times more.

The statue continued its search. Cross took charge of the investigation, and figured out that the statue was searching for something - or rather, someone. He confronted the mayor of the town over the issue.

The mayor, by now terrified of the additional destruction wrought by the Akuma and the young man who had faced them down without flinching, agreed to give up Cassandra, against her parents' wishes. She was released from the basement and walked out to the group from the Order.

The Akuma, it seemed, had planned for this, and attempted to take the chance to kill the weaker, inexperienced, and unarmed Cassandra. It burst from the crowd and attempted to strike her down.

But Cassandra wasn't truly unarmed. She had the statue, and took proper control of it as she fully synchronized with her Innocence. Though slow, the statue was able protect Cassandra, the Finders, and the mayor, although it was heavily damaged in the process. Cross eliminated the Akuma in the resulting window of opportunity.

Cassandra's father arrived to the scene late, and attempted to insist that he wasn't letting her leave until she was married. Cassandra - described by the Finder doing the report as spitting acid - responded by marching up to Cross and demanding to know if he was married.

At this point, you have to put the file down in order to pinch the bridge of your nose beneath your glasses in exasperation. There is no mention of them actually being married - that would definitely have been indicated in the 'family' section of either of their records, if only with a blacked out bar.

Indeed, reading further, while Cassandra made every appearance of having made a decision to marry the somewhat gobstruck Cross (it's hard to imagine him shocked into near-speechlessness, though you suppose that situation might do it), including telling her father that Cross was prettier than any of the suitors he had found, as soon as they were free of the village's borders -

"Don't worry, I wouldn't actually marry you. I can't stand men who smoke."

The Finder's report noted the comment verbatim, and you find yourself catching a laugh in the palm of your hand, in much the same way that you imagine your predecessors must have, reading those words.

And so it was that two Exorcists came back to the Black Order. The former Exorcist's revolver was refit to better suit Cross, becoming the Judgement that you're so familiar with. The Innocence extracted from the statue was forged into a staff that, when activated, became a spear much like the one the statue had carried and used in its attempts to dig out its mistress.

And then, close to ten years later, she died, and her body was given to the still-developing Second Exorcist project. You close the folder, setting it down on top of Cross'. You know how that story ends.

Or, it seems, how it didn't end. There's the sound of fluttering wings in the rafters, but when you look up, you can't see anything in the darkness.

"Well," you say, to the Exorcist who may or may not be present, "that's enough bedtime reading for me."

----

You're being watched.

You don't have the acute senses of someone like Kanda or Lavi, who can feel eyes on them. But you have twenty-seven years of experience of being No-Good Miranda, and you know that you make more mistakes when someone is watching you.

Especially when they're trying to watch you in secret.

And it's someone new, because it only started about a week ago, and it's only when you're inside Headquarters. When you're on a mission, you're fine, even as exhausted as you are. And it's not the Crow agents who seem to be an unfortunate new constant, ever since Kanda left and they threw Allen in prison, because they're not that new. It's been more than a week.

It comes to a head when you run into Lenalee in the hallway - quite literally. Your foot inexplicably loses its grip on the tile, just as you're giving her a small wave as she passes by you with hands full of mugs collected from her brother's office, and your waving hand turns into a flailing one as you grab her shoulder in an attempt to keep your balance.

Unusually for Lenalee, she goes down with you, falling onto her butt and dropping one of the mugs as you topple forward and hit your knees. Shards of shattered ceramic spread out around you, the sound of the crash much worse than it is. Your knees are well-used to these kinds of impacts, even if they happen a lot less these days.

"Oh no," you begin, swallowing down the litany of apologies that comes out of habit and limiting it to, "I'm sorry, Lenalee, the mug..."

"It's alright," Lenalee says immediately. She sets the pair of mugs she didn't drop down on the floor next to her. "I should have been paying more attention, too. And at the end of the day, it's just a mug, right? My brother has a thousand of them."

"Even so..." You do your best to brush the shards into a pile with the back of your hand, careful to not hurt yourself on any of them, though ceramics aren't usually as dangerous as glass in that regard. "It's been a while since I fell and broke something. I'll go and apologize to Komui later."

"Really, Miranda, you don't have to go that far," Lenalee says. "We're all tired. I'm sure my brother will understand that it was just an accident. He's more likely to start fussing over me."

"I'm not that tired," you say. "I got five and a half hours of sleep last night!" Given your chronic insomnia and nightmares, that's actually very good for you, but Lenalee is giving you the particular look she gives you when she's trying to hide how much she worries about you. It's almost a forced smile, but with a touch more grimace to it. "Really, you're the one who must be exhausted, going on your share of missions and then still helping your brother..."

You consider for a moment, but - if you can't trust Lenalee, who can you trust? She and Allen were your first friends in the whole world. The first people who didn't lose patience with you, even after repeating the same day with you for a week - the first people who truly believed in you.

So you scoot closer to her under the guise of continuing to clean up the chips of the mug, and say, "This will sound strange, but... lately, I think there's been someone watching me. I haven't seen anyone, but I was always more clumsy when someone was watching."

It sounds superstitious and foolish to say it aloud - but Lenalee just nods. She leans forward, pulling a handkerchief out of her pocket that you can put the broken shards into, and says quietly, "It's okay. If it's who I think it is, then they don't mean us any harm."

"Are you sure?" you ask, picking up a couple of the big shards and putting them into the fabric.

Lenalee nods. "I'm sure. I hope they're someone who can become a friend, when they're ready."

"I hope so, too," you say, brushing some of the smaller shards into the handkerchief. It's comforting to know - that you're not imagining things, and that the person watching you doesn't mean any harm, both. Maybe you'll stop being so clumsy in front of them now. You'd hate for something like this to be your first impression before a new comrade.

Lenalee looks like she's about to say something more, but before she can, her brother's voice echoes down the hallway. "Lenalee! Are you alright? Do you have any bruises?"

"I'm all right, Komui!" she calls back down the hallway, pushing herself up to stand. She picks up the unbroken mugs before taking the shards from you so you can stand (probably for the better, otherwise you might drop them right back all over the floor).

Komui sprints up, a folder of papers wedged under his arm and his hat askew. "Are you sure? We can go to medical - "

"Really," Lenalee says. "It was just a mug."

Komui blinks at being interrupted, and seems to notice you for the first time. His voice drops a distinct half-octave as he stops fussing over his sister. "And you, Miranda? Are you alright?"

It warms something deep in your chest. Before the Order, no one ever asked if you were alright when you broke something.

"I'm fine, Director," you say. "It was just a little tumble, that's all. I'm sorry about the mug."

"Don't worry about it," Komui says. "It's just a mug, after all."

----

Komui is up to something.

You're technically only the Science Division leader, but you've been Komui's second almost as long as he's been in the Order. That number ticked over a decade somewhere in the aftermath of the Alma Karma mess, the one you were all too lucky to survive.

So you know when he's up to something. And no amount of "It's not important, Reever, really," will dissuade you from this belief. When Komui says that kind of shit, it's only more reason to be concerned.

It comes as a total relief when Bak corners you with the same kinds of concerns. You don't have answers for him and he doesn't have answers for you, but at least you're not the only one who noticed. You'd have brought it up to Lenalee, but with how the Order has been pushing the Exorcists so hard lately...

Well. You're not going to bring things to Lenalee unless there's something definitely wrong. She's got enough on her plate. You can manage to handle her brother a little longer, surely.

"He was asking about Cross?" you say, nibbling on the end of your smoke as you shove enough stuff off the second chair in your office that Bak can actually sit down. You barely ever actually use your office; it's a place where paperwork can pile up without being at risk of contamination from any of the experiments running in the labs. Johnny used it more than you did; he used to use it as a makeshift fitting room when he was working on uniforms for the Exorcists, especially the women.

Of course, Johnny isn't here anymore. But you haven't assigned anyone to uniform duty in the three days he's been gone. You didn't think there would be a need for it this soon, but then Kanda reappeared and immediately fucked right off again, and if he does come back permanently, he's going to need a new uniform.

At least you'll be able to use the patterns Johnny left behind to just make a copy of the old one. Kanda hasn't changed much, even if his expression of not-aggression when he was walking down the hall next to Lenalee was absolutely disturbing.

"In a round-about way," Bak says. He slides a stack of papers out of the way with one foot and sits down. You don't bother to clean off your own desk chair; you just rest your ass against the lip of your desk. If you tried to sit back there, you wouldn't even be able to see Bak over the piles of paperwork and the trio of dress forms stacked in the corner. One of them has a half-finished design still pinned to it that might have been for Chaoji. "He asked if I knew that Cross and the previous life of Alma Karma had been Exorcists at the same time."

"Huh." You flick your cig up to your mouth, take a short drag. "Well, did you?"

"Even I didn't know who Alma's previous identity was," Bak says. "That knowledge died with my parents. But it seems Komui recognized her standing next to Cross in a picture from when they were made Exorcists."

Even if the Order had removed their names and records, you can see how something in someone else's file would have gotten missed. And the Order - or, rather, the Central Agency who had redacted the hell out of those files - would never have expected Allen Walker's soul-revealing eye to reveal the former identity of a subject of the Second Exorcist Project who was dead twice over.

"Wild to think about," you say. "Cross has been an Exorcist longer than any of us have been alive. I can't imagine him as a greenhorn."

"Somehow, he didn't look all that different in that photo," Bak says. "Younger, sure, and he didn't have that mask of his, but he still had that look where he knows more than anyone around him."

"Yeah, that sounds right." There's a hole somewhere in the paper of your smoke that's messing with the flow of air through it. You don't have any spare papers in your pocket, just a pair of crumpled prerolls that are probably just as bad. "Do you really think he's dead?"

"I don't know," Bak says. "But I don't think Komui does."

You grunt. Yeah, that would fit. Komui trying to investigate Cross on the down-low, trying to figure out where he'd gone to ground, without letting on to Central? That'd make his recent behaviour make sense.

"Funny angle to go at it from," you say. "It's not like that lady could tell us anything about where he might have gone."

Even if Alma Karma had remembered her life in perfect clarity - which you think is kind of unlikely, just from what you know of Kanda - he's deader than dead. Gone where even Cross' own expert necromancy wouldn't be able to reach him.

"I told Komui the same thing," Bak says. "He just said that he wanted to be thorough."

"And you smelled bullshit?"

"Since when does Komui ever intentionally take on more paperwork? Unless it has to do with Lenalee, of course."

Well. He's not wrong about that. You take a long drag off your smoke, finger over the hole in the paper to get the best draw you can manage, and say, "Yeah. It stinks. But there's not a lot we can do about it, is there? We just have to be there ready to pick up the mess."

Bak sighs. "You're right. But I thought you should know."

"Thanks," you say, meaning it. "I'll keep an eye on him, don't worry."

----

There's something weird going on around Headquarters, and since none of the adults have noticed, that means it's up to you and you alone to figure out what it is.

...Okay, in reality, you're probably not the only one who has noticed, and the adults are doing their own investigation. And since they're unlikely to tell you much of anything of use even if you ask - you've gotten used to that at this point - you'll just have to do your own investigation.

(Tsukikami just sighs at you and tells you to be careful.)

So you skate around the Order with a notebook in your pocket, writing down anything that seems unusual, which is admittedly any number of things. The Order is a place where unusual things gather, and you don't even just mean the other Exorcists. The things other users of Innocence can do make sense, or as much sense as your own abilities.

Here's what you manage to notice and write down (Emilia won't complain too much if you can show her that you've been practicing, right?):

- There are vents all over the Order that are open like a small bird or something that can climb the walls is using them to get around. It's always the high vents, not the lower ones you'd expect an animal to use otherwise.

- Whatever it is is trying to avoid the Crow agents. You see a lot fewer open vents in areas the Crow regularly lurk or spend time patrolling.

- On the other hand, it hangs out near Exorcists a lot. Not only are there open vents, but you actually see a flash of white in them a couple times, watching you. (Unfortunately, you're far too short to actually get up to the vent in time to see what it was, and Tsukikami is no help because he can't actually see anything you can't see. You can't just send your brain ghost around the corner to check things out for you.)

- It also likes the Science Department and the records rooms. You see open vents there, too.

Conclusion: It's probably a spy. But when you ask the Science guys about it, they're dismissive of the idea.

"The Earl wouldn't be able to get a spy like that inside HQ," Reever tells you. "Someone would have to let it in intentionally, and if he's got a guy on the inside who can do that, why would he bother?"

You don't like that answer, but it's very hard to refute it. You skate out of the Science Department in a mood, kicking harder than you really need to. You're too mad to really pay attention, so you keep on rolling until you lose control and crash hard into a door.

"Ow..."

"That's what you get for getting distracted, Master," Tsukikami contributes, sounding tired and unsurprised. And, alright, it's not like it's the first time you've crashed into a wall or door. Your uniform has skates so that you (or your body) can keep up with the older Exorcists, all of whom are much taller and faster than you. The next-slowest, Chaoji, can still lap you easy in the big training hall under the main building.

But you feel like you're being watched, and when you look up, there's a white shape observing you from the vent. The spy.

Except it doesn't look anything like a spy. It looks like the illustration of raw Innocence that Komui showed you when he was first explaining to you what Innocence really was and what it meant to be an Exorcist.

You still point your finger dramatically at the vent. "It's you! Get down here and quit creeping, you... weird guy!" You belatedly remember that even if you're alone right now, anyone could come around and hear you, and you don't particularly want to get punished for swearing again. The Order doesn't deprive you or make you wash your mouth with soap, but extra lines aren't much better.

"Weird guy?!" The voice echoes in your head, not quite like Tsukikami's - that sounds like it's coming from a part of you, whereas this sounds like it's being beamed into your head from somewhere else. It's not a voice that you've heard before, and it's either a kid around your age or a young guy's. Somehow it's both, really, like the person speaking can't quite decide. "At least have the decency to call me a weird bastard!"

You risk a glance at where Tsukikami floats his image in your perception, because there's no other audience for your are you serious right now look.

"Please forgive my Master," Tsukikami says, clearly confused but trying to be polite. You go stiff; he's never spoken to anyone except you before, because no one else can hear him, unless he's occupying your body while you possess an Akuma. "Miss Emilia has been going to a great effort to convince him to clean up his language."

"Tsukikami?" You ask, instead of the much more swear-filled question in the back of your mouth. Just for Emilia's sake.

Your Innocence inclines his head to the side, and says, "That person is Innocence. It seems we don't have to worry about a spy after all."

"HUH." The voice in your head, which you guess must belong to the other Innocence-person, makes an 'I completely understand' noise that feels like it could break walls if it had real volume. "I've never seen an Innocence that had its own consciousness before."

With the flick of a long, snakey tail, he pushes the grate open and flutters out, like the weirdest bird, and settles on top of your head. You do your best to glare upwards, and you're about to give him shit like 'maybe ask before you sit on people' when a subtle warmth flows outward from your own Innocence, relieving the immediate pain in your face from the crash. "What does that make you, then?" you ask instead, with a huff.

"I'm a ghost!" he replies, weirdly cheerful about it. "Or something like that, anyway."

"Cool," you say. "Order's haunted."

"Oh, it's always been haunted. And keep it down, will you? I really don't want to get found by the Crow."

That's fair, honestly. "Sorry," you say in a whisper.

You feel movement on your head, the wings of the Innocence coming up and down in the corners of your vision. A shrug. "No one's noticed yet," he says, which must mean you're cool. The voice sounds more like the older person now that he's settled down. "You're Timothy, right?"

"Yeah, that's me. And that guy is Tsukikami," you say, because that's what manners say you should do, and you do have some. It's just not that you often get to introduce Tsukikami to people. Most of the other Exorcists know he exists, because what happens to your body is something they need to know when you're fighting, but that's about it. "What's your name?"

A pause. The wings in the corners of your vision droop, and the weight on top of your head gets somehow heavier.

"Or... do you not remember?" you say, putting your hands in your pockets self-consciously. In a lot of ghost stories you've heard, the ghost doesn't remember who they were, and helping them figure it out is the only way to help them move on. "Sorry."

"It's not that. I guess you could say I remember too much."

That's not cryptic as hell or anything. You're about to say so, when you hear Emilia's voice calling down the hallway, "Timothy! I know you went this way, everyone saw you - "

Before most of her words even reach you, the ghost Innocence jumps off your head and disappears in a white streak back into the vent, leaving it open behind himself. That explains why so many of them were left open, at least. You're familiar with the need to beat a hasty escape to avoid getting caught.

You stare after him for a minute, and whisper, "We'll talk again sometime!" before you turn in the direction of where Emilia is coming into the hallway, looking relieved to have found you.

"Are you alright?" she asks, taking in the way you're still splayed out across the floor.

"I'm fine," you say quickly. "Really. Everything's fine."

----

You set up everything on your desk just so - open ink bottle, actual junk paper that you can dispose of when this is done, and even a towel - already stained to hell and back from machine oil and other experiments - that ink can be wiped on without it mattering. If you thought it would make a difference, you would even have set up a second cup.

But of course, there isn't much of a point if the other person can't drink.

"Exorcist Hanes," you say, up into the rafters. "Would you be willing to come speak with me?"

There's a pause,m and then a white shape flutters down to land on your desk. Yes, still the same wings-and-tail Innocence as before.

A dip into the ink, and then a speedy, splattered, Too formal appears across the page, somewhat more readable than the last time you 'talked.'

"My apologies. Cassandra, then."

What do you want?

You pause, hum slightly under your breath. If this was a spoken conversation, you'd draw the anticipation out longer, but as it is, the exchange of words is slow enough, so you don't spend more than a moment dragging it up.

"That's the question I was hoping to ask of you."

A hesitation. A dip in the ink.

If I'm damned to live like this, and there's so much in that word choice, isn't there, a weight to the words that even Kanda couldn't have pulled off, then I'm going to use it to pay off the only debt I still owe.

"To Cross?"

Fuck Cross. To Allen Walker.

There's something deliberate about the use of Allen's full name that you can't unpack. There's only one person named Allen in the entire Order, much less the parts of it that either 'Cassandra' or 'Alma' would know. And yet the time was taken to write it out in full.

You say, "In that case, I'm surprised you're still here. I would have thought you'd be trying to catch up to him."

Like this? Ha. The period after the single beat of laughter is jabbed hard enough to splatter. Besides, paying the debt doesn't mean following him around. It means acting in his interests.

So that's the way it is. In the numerous splitting factions that the Order is dissolving into, there is one person who is absolutely on Allen's side. You don't have any reason to doubt that statement.

After all, Alma has no reason to have loyalties to anyone else. If the Order were to break into factions, you wouldn't be surprised if Kanda also cast his cards with Allen. He had gone against the Order for their sake, just to allow them the chance for that private closure.

Kanda, who came back to the Order and left again just as quickly, is probably on his way to Allen right now. No one is willing to say that part out loud, but almost everyone knows.

"And his interests are...?"

A fluttering of wings, folding them against the torso shape of the Innocence in a way that looks not unlike someone putting their arms folded over their chest. That's the fucking question.

You hide your laughter in a drink from your cup - herbal tea, at this hour. You don't actually want to be up all night.

While you're drinking, the scribbling continues, There's not much I can do for him without a body, anyway. Only Exorcists whose bodies are their connection to their Innocence can even hear me talk.

You do grimace over your tea, at that. Both Cassandra and Alma were noted as friendly and outgoing - social people. (A mostly unredacted report on the Second Exorcist Program that you were able to get your hands on even described Kanda as Alma's opposite in that regard.)

"That seems like a special kind of hell," you say sympathetically.

Yeah. It's impressive how much emotion can be conveyed in the physical act of writing a single word.

The conversational lull that follows is surprisingly comfortable, given the circumstances. You swirl the tea in your cup once, and say, "I'm sure he'd be glad to have someone looking out for his comrades, while he's unable to do so."

It's so transparent, it can barely even be called an attempt at manipulation. But the situation of the Exorcists who are still at the Order is getting desperate, and you'll take whatever boons and mercy God decides to throw your way in order to help them.

And the thing is that it's still true, even if you have ulterior motives for saying it. Central grilled Lenalee so many times on what happened when the Noah took Allen away from the Order. She bore it with as much grace as she could manage, but you of all people could see her starting to slip. Could see that being sent back to the field and the punishing mission rota was a relief for her.

(And for what? The Noah aren't showing themselves and the only Innocence any of those missions has recovered was when Allen and Kanda brought Timothy back. The only point does seem to be straining the Exorcists to their breaking points.)

(Then again, you're short two Generals. Pushing the Exorcists into evolution, into pushing past that synchronization barrier, might well be the point.)

You're not wrong. That does seem like the kind of thing he'd want.

You smile softly. "Even meeting him just once, he does give off that impression, doesn't he?" Though it's hardly like the two of them were just passing on the street.

You don't have to butter me, you know.

It takes you a moment. "Isn't the phrase 'butter me up'?"

Rather than words, the response is a series of lines that you realize after a moment are representations of the fingers of a hand held up in a rude gesture. You bite down somewhat hard on the urge to laugh.

(It's definitely 'Alma' you're speaking to, rather than 'Cassandra,' regardless of the mode of address.)

"I'll cut to the chase, then," you say. "I know there's no love lost between you and Central. At this point... The same can be said for me, and I think most of those who care for the Exorcists would agree." They're dangerous words to say out loud, dangerous words to commit to. You've always been so careful to toe the line.

But then again, you toed the line because Central Agency stayed behind theirs, and didn't swing their weight around in your domain. You're sure that if you actually worked up to asking him, Bak would say the same - so would most of the other Branch Directors. (Some of them probably still would - the Middle Eastern and Oceania branches haven't been involved in the current mess, after all.)

"I'd like to make you an offer." This isn't toeing the line anymore. It's as good as a declaration of war, in some regards. If you're caught, you'll surely be tried for heresy yourself, and then there will be no one except Bak left with any kind of power to protect the Exorcists.

(But what good is that power, if you can't use it? It might as well not even exist.)

The torso of the form of Alma's Innocence straightens up, taking you seriously. You smile, and off the top of the pile of papers at your side, you lift Cassandra's old records folder.

"You see, I was reading your old files, and I had a thought regarding the unique powers of your Innocence..."